Juicy Post: Fifty Shades Of Ganache

Fooled You!

Just kidding, Charlene and I  have considerably fewer then 50 versions of this easy, seductive dessert preparation.  But the combination of different types of chocolate with hot cream lends itself to all sorts of pleasures. Yes, ganache is a glaze or frostng, but it can also be whipped as a mousse and used as a filling or be served naked as a dessert with a fruit or cookie garnish. Blue Bottle Coffee makes a ganache base with water to create hot chocolate and mocha drinks. And ganache is the very heart and soul of chocolate truffles.  It can be thinned to make seductive drips along the edges of a cake.  You can make it slightly runny and dunk strawberries, banana, or mango slices into it. You can, with a slightly different technique, make a white chocolate ganache that can be flavored with the hazelnut paste from our  Setteveli post. or with pistachio paste.  These variations are used extensively for the filling  of macarons and other pastries. Ganache is magical.

Ganache 101

Take the plunge and get a scale if you don’t currently own one. Join the rest of the world and weigh your ingredients,  and it’s particularly important for ganache. Once you establish the ratio of chocolate to cream, you are in control of the ganache universe.  

While the base of ganache is simply hot cream mixed into chopped chocolate, there are some essentials you need to know about your ingredients. Using chocolate chips, which are low in cocoa butter and high in additives, will not give you a real ganache. You must use a couverture chocolate – made from high quality cocoa beans and containing  a higher percentage of cocoa butter (32–39%) rather than chocolate you purchase for snacking or baking.  Couverture chocolate is enriched with more cocoa butter and conched  (this is an agitator process that distributes the cocoa butter and cocoa solids to make a smoother and richer tasting chocolate.) Finally, couverture chocolate is tempered, giving it its distinctive sheen, its snap when broken, and its unique deep creamy flavor.

Even if you depend on individual recipes for ganache creations,  it is helpful to keep these weight  ratios in mind. With a  bittersweet chocolate  (55%-65%) the ratio should be 2 parts to chocolate to 1 part  cream  For a semi-sweet or milk chocolate (32%-42%) a 2.5 parts chocolate to 1 part cream ratio works best.  White chocolate  is 3 parts chocolate to 1 part cream. Some  chocolate makers prefer equal parts of bittersweet chocolate to cream for their truffle centers or for a thick fudge type frosting.    

Oh, and by cream, we mean a cream within the range of  35% butterfat. You can make an excellent ganache with crème fraiche too, which you can mix with heavy cream or thin with light cream; and that can have a butterfat content  from 15-30% . Crème fraiche will lend a little more zip to the chocolate flavor.   

Some Not So Kinky Tips For Success

If your chocolate is solid rather than in pistole or chip form, chop it up roughly and with a bench scraper (this one is my personal favorite), add  the chunks to a heat-proof bowl. The hot cream  will  melt the chocolate before it cools down.  If the chocolate does not melt in time, you then have to reheat it in a bowl over hot water. And you want the chocolate (particularly white chocolate) to stay below 110F. 

Heat your cream up to the boiling point over medium heat. Pour into  the chocolate.  Allow the mixture to  rest for a moment and then stir gently from the middle out to the periphery. Both Charlene  and I prefer to use a wood spoon or spoonula rather than a whisk to smooth out the chocolate and cream. We found whisking sometimes caused little bubbles, an interference with the seductive smoothness of a perfect ganache.  

You can heat the cream with an herb or spice to create an infused cream before adding to the chopped chocolate – mint leaves or stick cinnamon are good examples.

If you want a shinier surface, simply  add a small amount of butter to your ganache. Also, you can add another flavor with an extract, essence, or a liqueur once you have reached your desired emulsion.  

When  you choose a bittersweet chocolate with a high cocoa content (above 68% cocoa solids) you will need to add about 20% of its weight in glucose, a neutral honey, or corn syrup or it will break.  

Any hardened ganache can be gently reheated over barely simmering water  without damage. To thin it further, add some thin cream to get to the texture you want.  And, if your ganache is too liquid, or if you have some runny ganache left from glazing a cake, add some more chopped chocolate to it when it is warmed to thicken it for another use. 

Just like coloring fondant, it’s best to use gel  paste colors or even oil-based candy coloring to tint ganache. Don’t use a watery food coloring, which could seize your chocolate and won’t give you the color you’re after. Add a few drops of concentrated color after you’ve mixed your cream and chocolate together to get the desired shade. For the most vibrant colors, start with white chocolate. But use milk or dark chocolate if you’re coloring to black.

Place a piece of plastic wrap  directly on the surface of the ganache to stop a sugar crust forming, and leave at room temperature until you get the spreading consistency you desire.  Ganache can be kept refrigerated for a couple of weeks or can be frozen for up to three months and defrosted at room temperature. 

Covering a Naked Cake

Once your ganache has cooled and set up to the thickness you want, it is ready to use. If the ganache firms up past the point of being spreadable, place it in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until the ganache is a spreadable consistency, just a minute or two  A rough idea of how much to use for a cake would be 400gr chocolate/200gr cream for an 8-inch layer, and 500gr chocolate/250gr cream for a 9-inch layer. Charlene and I brush the cake with an imbuing syrup before glazing or frosting.  If it is a glaze, put the cake on a cooling rack on a sheet pan, and pour over the still warm ganache.  

If you wish to make a light mousse-like ganache for filling (or even as a dessert by itself) you can add to your bittersweet chocolate ganache the same weight in cold cream as the weight of the chocolate you started with.  So if you started with 200gr  bittersweet chocolate, you will add 200 gr of cold cream to the cooled ganache for whisking into a mousse.  For milk chocolate, it would be 76% of the weight of the chocolate used, and for white chocolate, 50% of the weight.  When you have added the cold cream to the cooled ganache (meaning room temperature), whisk in your mixer at medium speed until you get a light, airy texture.  Do not over-whip as it will become grainy.  And you can alter the ratio of additional cream for a whipped ganache: make it less and you will have a denser mousse. 

That Said, Some Twists on Ganache

We thought we would give you some more unusual recipes for ganache,  from the seductive  Italian Baci di Dama,  a meltingly delicious Biscuit de Savoie from France, and Stephanie Gorenflo’s sinfully delicious Fudge Sauce. 

Our favorite Baci di Dama recipe is adapted from pastry chef Gina De Palma (who died from ovarian cancer in 2010) and was a shining star at Babbo in New York. She took the basic recipe and just made it better in our minds.  You can bake the cookies, fill them with her ganache and then freeze them.  They are still delicious.  Her book Dolce Italiano is worth purchasing, if you love to bake.  

Biscuit de Savoie is a centuries old cake recipe that can done in a mold, or as a layer to be split, or even as roulade, so you can fill it with whipped ganache, roll it , and finish it off with our Chocolate Caramel  ganache glaze. We all should be so lucky! This recipe works in any 6 -8 cup or a 9-inch layer cake pan.  For a roulade, use nothing larger than a 10×15 sheet pan .  We usually butter the pan of choice and then use almond flour instead of flour for lining the greased interior. 

Stephanie took ganache to another level with the divine Hot Fudge Sauce.  She used to make a quart jar of it for one of our sweet customers, Carmen, who battled cancer  before succumbing after four years.  Carmen always came in after her treatments and Stephanie would have a jar waiting for her.  I still think of her lovely and valiant soul when I make this.  An extra jar or two of this on hand makes a great impromptu hostess gift. You can easily make a double batch and pour the excess into sterilized hot jars with sealing lids like the ones you use for jam.The sauce will keep in these jars, unopened and unrefrigerated for up to six months.

Nancy Pollard